string, how shall I draw thee? Thou dear outside, will you be combing your wig, playing with your box, or picking your teeth, &c." Wigs and snuff-boxes were then the rage. Steele's own wig, it is recorded, made at one time a considerable part of his annual expenditure. His large black periwig cost him, even at that day, no less than forty guineas!-We wear nothing at present in this degree of extravagance. But such a wig was the idol of fashion, and they were performing perpetually their worship with infinite self-complacency; combing their wigs in public was then the very spirit of gallantry and rank. The hero of Richardson, youthful and elegant as he wished him to be, is represented waiting at an assignation, and describing his sufferings in bad weather by lamenting that "his wig and his linen were dripping with the hoar frost dissolving on them." Even Betty, Clarissa's lady's maid, is described as "tapping on her snuff-box," and frequently taking snuff. At this time nothing was so monstrous as the head-dresses of the ladies in Queen Anne's reign they formed a kind of edifice of three stories high; and a fashionable lady of that day much resembles the mythological figure of Cybele, the mother of the gods, with three towers on her head. It is not worth noticing the changes in fashion, unless to ridicule them. However, there are some who find amusement in these records of luxurious idleness; these thousand and one follies! Modern fashions, till very lately a purer taste has obtained among our females, were generally mere copies of obsolete ones, and rarely originally fantastical. The dress of some of our beaux will only be known in a few years hence by their caricatures. In 1751 the dress of a dandy is described in the Inspector. A black velvet coat, a green and silver waistcoat, yellow velvet breeches, and blue stockings. This too was the era of black silk breeches; an extraordinary novelty, against which "some frowsy people attempted to raise up worsted in emulation." A satirical writer has described a buck about forty years ago; one could hardly have suspected such a gentleman to have been one of our contemporaries. "A coat of light green, with sleeves too small for the arms, and buttons too big for the sleeves; a pair of Manchester fine stuff breeches, without money in the pockets; clouded silk stockings, but no legs; a club of hair behind larger than the head that carries it; a hat of the size of six-pence on a block not worth a farthing." As this article may probably arrest the volatile eyes of my fair readers, let me be permitted to felicitate them on their improvement in elegance in the forms of their dress; and the taste and knowledge of art which they frequently exhibit. But let me remind them that there are universal principles of beauty in dress independent of all fashions. Tacitus remarks of Poppea, the consort of Nero, that she concealed a part of her face; to the end that, the imagination having fuller play by irritating curiosity, they might think higher of her beauty than if the whole of her face had been exposed. The sentiment is beautifully expressed by Tasso, and it will not be difficult to remember it: "Non copre sue bellezze, e non l'espose." I conclude by preserving a poem, written in my youth, not only because the great poet of this age has honoured it by placing it in "The English Minstrelsy," but as a memorial of some fashions which have become extinct in my own days. STANZAS, ADDRESSED TO LAURA, ENTREATING HER NOT TO PAINT, TO J. Ah, LAURA! quit the noisy town, How long from Art's reflected hues Shalt thou a mimic charm receive? Believe, my fair! the faithful muse, They spoil the blush they cannot give. Must ruthless art, with torturous steel, Too sweet thy youth's enchanting bloom, Sacred to love and sweet repose, Behold that trellis'd bower is nigh! There, as in every lock of gold Some flower of pleasing hue I weave, So the rude Tartar's holy rite A feeble MORTAL once array'd; Then trembled in the mortal's sight, A SENATE OF JESUITS. In a book entitled "Interêts et Maximes des Princes et des Etats Souverains, par M. Le Duc de Rohan; Cologne, 1666,” an anecdote is recorded concerning the Jesuits: so much the more curious, as neither Puffendorf nor Vertot have noticed it in their histories, though its authority cannot be higher. * The Lama, or God of the Tartars, is composed of such frail materials as mere mortality; contrived, however, by the power of priestcraft, to appear immortal; the succession of Lamas never failing! When Sigismond, king of Sweden, was elected king of Poland, he made a treaty with the states of Sweden, by which he obliged himself to pass every fifth year in that kingdom. By his wars with the Ottoman court, with Muscovy, and Tartary, compelled to remain in Poland to encounter such powerful enemies, he failed, during fifteen years, of accomplishing his promise. To remedy this in some shape, by the advice of the Jesuits, who had gained an ascendancy over him, he created a senate to reside at Stockholm, composed of forty chosen Jesuits, to decide on every affair of state. He published a declaration in their favour, presented them with letters-patent, and invested them with the royal authority. While this senate of Jesuits was at Dantzic, waiting for a fair wind to set sail for Stockholm, he published an edict, that the Swedes should receive them as his own royal person. A public council was immediately held. Charles, the uncle of Sigismond, the prelates, and the lords, resolved to prepare for them a splendid and magnificent entry. But in a private council, they came to very contrary resolutions: for the prince said, he could not bear that a senate of priests should command, in preference to all the honours and authority of so many princes and lords, natives of the country. All the others agreed with him in rejecting this holy senate. The archbishop |